Resources
From Category: Self-Publishing Resources
Public Domain Image Archive
The Public Domain Review launched this online database in 2025. It features over 10,000 vintage illustrations and photographs that are in the public domain, from medieval times to the early 20th century. Search by artist, century, style, theme, or keyword. This is a great resource for book designers and collage artists
Jay Wurts, Writer and Editor
Editor Jay Wurts offers a range of services to indie authors, including developmental editing, ghostwriting, and coaching on how to make your book project more marketable to agents and publishers. He has experience helping culturally diverse and ESL authors package their work for a mainstream audience. He also works with publishers as a freelance editor or ghostwriter.
Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute
The Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute is an online community dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now. Whether you're adding descriptive details to your historical fiction or looking for the exact vibe for your book cover, you and your design team can benefit from CARI's classification of style differences that we usually only recognize intuitively.
Author’s Republic
Author's Republic is a platform for creating and distributing audiobooks. They support books in a variety of formats, including Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. You can create the book through them, using one of the narrators from their curated roster, or upload your already-created audio files for them to format and distribute to a variety of sales channels.
BookBaby’s Guide to Book Pricing for Authors
BookBaby is a leading vendor of self-publishing and related services. In this 2023 article on their website, writer and editor Philip Kinsher breaks down the costs of publishing and marketing your book, and the factors to consider when setting the book's price in various formats.
Editing by George
Bruno George is an experienced in-house and freelance editor who has worked on books published by Yale University Press, Microsoft, and the Seattle Art Museum, among others. He is a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient. He is available to help with your novels, art books, or technical writing. His companion site, Writing Your Life, offers memoir editing and ghostwriting services.
IBPA’s Best Practices for Hybrid Publishers
In 2022 the Independent Book Publishers Association proposed these best-practices guidelines for hybrid publishers, in response to reports that indie authors were losing money on poor book design and misleading promises of royalties. Among their criteria: hybrid publishers should be selective, publish under their own imprint with a clearly defined mission and aesthetic for the press, provide distribution services, and have a track record of sales comparable to other presses in their genre.
Google Fonts Knowledge
Google Fonts is a library of 1,357 free licensed font families and APIs for convenient use via CSS and Android. The Knowledge page adds advice about different font styles and how to choose the one that works best for your project. Learn readability tips regarding line height, kerning, contrast, and more.
Ebook Launch
Founded in 2011, Ebook Launch is a self-publishing services company. They offer proofreading, copyediting, and interior and cover design for your self-published book. Their prices, though not cheap, are clearly stated up front, and their cover designs are professional-looking and unique for each book. It's worth investing in good design to make your book stand out.
How to Make a Zine
Zines are self-published, limited-edition miniature magazines, often illustrated or multimedia. They have long been popular with independent authors, fandom communities, and grassroots political movements. This article from My Modern Met, a creativity and lifestyles website, demonstrates the materials, layout, and binding options for an attractive and easy-to-make zine.
E-book Design Tips from Podia
This article from 2020 gives a user-friendly overview of design principles to make e-books more readable and engaging, from font choice to graphic and multimedia elements. Author Cyn Meyer is a content marketer for Podia, a platform for creating online courses, digital downloads, and membership websites.
Old Book Illustrations
Images from this searchable database of vintage book illustrations are free to download for your graphic design project. The site attempts to ensure that all images are public-domain and legally accessible in your jurisdiction, but the risk is ultimately on you to confirm permission.
Self-Publishing School
Self-Publishing School offers intensive, individualized coaching programs to help authors finish, design, and promote their self-published books. With a prize tag of around $6,000 per course, this program is most useful to writers who already know the fundamentals of copyediting and story structure, and who can commit to finishing their book within a few months. It is not an editing or ghostwriting service. Best for authors of commercial nonfiction, genre fiction, and children's books.
Independent Book Review
Independent Book Review publicizes small press and self-published books through online reviews and author interviews. They also sell editorial services such as developmental and copyediting, proofreading, and book design. (Winning Writers does not recommend paying for reviews; submit your book for consideration to their free reviews service only.)
Self-Publishing Made Simple with April Cox
Children's book author April Cox offers numerous services for self-published authors, including an indie author interview series on YouTube, an author workgroup with step-by-step advice for creating and launching your book, and online courses. Visit her YouTube channel for book marketing tips and profiles of worthwhile indie books.
Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Hybrid Publishing
In this 2021 guest post at publishing expert Jane Friedman's blog, prizewinning indie novelist Barbara Linn Probst (Queen of the Owls and The Sound Between the Notes) explains the "hybrid publishing" business model. Similar to self-publishing, hybrid publishing requires a financial investment by the author. However, a hybrid publisher may be more selective and will provide more editorial and design services. Hybrid publishers may also offer distribution that is more like a traditional publisher.
The Self Publisher
The Self Publisher is the writing resource site of novelist and writing coach C.S. Lakin. Her blog features useful articles on such topics as copyrighting your work, building an author website, how to price your books, and getting Amazon reviews.
Jessica Hische
Jessica Hische is a successful graphic designer specializing in lettering (typefaces), as well as the author and illustrator of the bestselling children's book Tomorrow I'll Be Brave. Check out her website to get cover-design inspiration, purchase fonts for your book, or hire her for a design project.
Author Level Up
Michael La Ronn is a prolific self-published science fiction and fantasy author. His website is updated weekly with videos that share his best advice on writing, publishing, and marketing. We liked his 12-minute spiel on "How to BEAT Self-Doubt as a Writer".
Keith Wheeler Books
Children's book author Keith Wheeler creates lively, informative short videos with advice on writing, designing, and marketing your self-published books.
Self-Publishing Advice Center
The Self-Publishing Advice Center website is a project of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). Features include tech recommendations, author interviews, marketing and editing advice, and scam-busting pages that rate the leading indie book contests and self-publishing service providers based on their price structure and ethics.
Writer’s Digest Tips on Writing a Standout Self-Published Book
AJ Wells, a judge for the self-published book competitions at Writer's Digest, breaks down the key ingredients of a successful entry. Professional cover design is a must, as is editing to eliminate extraneous details that slow down the story. Don't rush the book into print without making it as polished as possible.
Artvee
Artvee offers free, downloadable, high-res images of public domain art from museums around the world. Great for book covers.
Book Cover Templates at PosterMyWall
PosterMyWall is a graphic design vendor offering templates and stock images for email marketing, promotional videos, social media posts, and self-published book design. A monthly subscription gives you unlimited templates and various credits toward buying photos, or you can pay for individual images and videos as needed. Their sample book covers on their website are professional-looking and clearly indicate the book's genre.
BookBaby
BookBaby offers self-published authors a full range of services from editing and design to printing, distribution, and marketing. BookBaby is a co-sponsor of our North Street Book Prize—that's how much we trust them!
Nappy Stock Photography
Looking for diverse book cover art on a budget? Nappy offers high-quality free stock photos featuring black and brown people.
Madhouse Media Publishing
Madhouse Media Publishing is a self-publishing services company based in New South Wales, Australia. Their offerings include editing, book and cover design, print/e-book conversion, and marketing assistance. Visit their blog for how-to articles for indie authors. Their Ebook Revolution Podcast features author interviews about craft and career topics.
Best Fonts for Books
IngramSpark is a leading distributor of self-published, small press, and print-on-demand books. In this 2019 article from their website, book designer Michele DeFilippo gives advice on choosing the best fonts for your book. Primary considerations are readability and harmony with the content.
PhotoBloom
Fine art photographer Carol Bloom's landscapes, street scenes, still lifes, and abstract images are composed with the care of Old Masters paintings, as charged with dramatic tension as an Edward Hopper scene. These evocative works would be suitable for licensing for a poetry collection, literary fiction, or memoir book cover. Locations include New York City, Paris, and Israel.
MiblArt Book Cover Design
MiblArt offers affordable custom cover designs for self-published books in print and digital formats (e-book or audiobook). They will work in all genres, but their portfolio thus far is mainly commercial nonfiction and genre fiction, especially fantasy and thriller.
Dark Art Movement
Founded by Alberto Sisí, the Dark Art Movement is an online gallery of macabre visual art in the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch, Francisco Goya, and H.R. Giger. Writers of horror fiction and poetry will find many intriguing images to use as writing prompts or to license for their book covers.
Book Brush
Book Brush offers templates to create professional-looking ads and social media images for your books. Create three free images per month with the free membership, or unlimited images with the paid plan, which also includes more design options.
Key Book Publishing Paths
Publishing expert Jane Friedman explains different tracks to book publication in this annually updated chart, which compares the key features of Big Five traditional publishing, small press, indie, hybrid, and self-publishing.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons indexes over 300 million public domain and stock photo images available for licensing for your website, book cover, or marketing materials. Searches can be filtered by the type of permitted use and licensing regime.
Self-Publishing Review
Self-Publishing Review offers book marketing and editing services for indie authors. Their blog features useful articles on book promotion, choosing the best release date for your genre of book, technical advice and recommended apps, and more. Self-published and small press authors can enter their annual awards to win a promotional package. (We do not recommend using paid book review services, which they also offer.)
Publishing Resources Links at BookBub
Diana Urban, industry marketing manager at the self-publishing company BookBub, compiled this list of 48+ reputable vendors for every stage of book creation and marketing. Categories include developmental and copy editing, graphic design, distribution for self-published books, marketing, publishing industry news, authors' associations, and website building tools. Links are current as of 2019.
The Savvy Self-Publisher
At the website of Poets & Writers magazine, publishing veteran Debra Englander has interviewed numerous self-published authors about their experiences creating and marketing their books. Each interview is supplemented with expert opinions about the success of the author's self-publishing plan, adding up to a valuable case study on all aspects of self-publishing.
PublishDrive Free E-book Converter
PublishDrive's free converter tool will change your MS Word documents into ePub or Kindle mobi files (two of the most popular e-book formats). Note that conversion of complicated publications is not guaranteed (magazines, textbooks, books with many pictures or too long and wide tables). Files must use Latin characters only, no foreign-language alphabets.
Barnes & Noble Press
This free program allows you to self-publish your books in print and for B&N's Nook e-reader and compatible devices. The site takes a percentage of sales.
Kirkus Reviews: Complete Self-Publishing Guide for Authors
This free 21-page online guide from Kirkus Reviews, a leading book-review publication, walks new authors through their basic options for design, marketing, and distribution of self-published books.
IBPA Hybrid Publisher Criteria
The Independent Book Publishers Association released these guidelines in 2018 to help small presses adhere to best practices, and to assist authors in distinguishing a legitimate author-publisher cost-sharing model from a vanity press. IBPA's Hybrid Publisher Criteria require that hybrid publishers behave just like traditional publishers in all respects, except when it comes to business model. Hybrid publishers use an author-subsidized business model, as opposed to financing all costs themselves, and in exchange return a higher-than-industry-standard share of sales proceeds to the author. In other words, although hybrid publishing companies are author-subsidized, they are different from other author-subsidized models in that they adhere to professional publishing standards. IBPA's standards include a competitive editorial selection process, high-quality book design, distribution services, and respectable sales figures.
Best and Worst Self-Publishing Services Rated by the Alliance of Independent Authors
The Alliance of Independent Authors maintains this Watchdog service that rates dozens of self-publishing services based on price, distribution channels, book design quality, and ethics.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s How to Do It Frugally
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's "How to Do It Frugally" website is the portal for her award-winning series of books on marketing, editing, and book proposals. Her guides for indie authors have received honors from USA Book News, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the Global Ebook Awards, and others. The Frugal Book Promoter and How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically feature strategies for free or low-cost book publicity. The Frugal Editor and Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers will ensure that your self-published book or manuscript submission looks professional. The Great First Impression Book Proposal: Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in 30 Minutes or Less covers pitching your manuscript to editors and agents.
Damonza Book Design
The design team at Damonza offers a variety of packages for book cover design, print and e-book formatting, and book trailer videos. They have experience in both fiction and commercial nonfiction. Check out their 800+ samples on their website.
Reedsy’s Best Book Review Blogs of 2017
Reedsy is a networking and resource site for book marketing. This curated list features 174 book review blogs that were active as of 2017, searchable by genre and openness to indie books (self-published and print-on-demand).
Do Daily Deal Services Work?
In this 2017 article at Writer Unboxed, Laura Heffernan, self-published author of the romantic comedy novels America's Next Reality Star and Sweet Reality, compares sales figures and Amazon rankings from 19 "daily deal" sites where she advertised her 99-cent e-book sale.
Self-Publishing a Debut Literary Novel
In this 2017 guest post on publishing expert Jane Friedman's blog, Nicole Dieker offers a dollars-and-cents case study of all the marketing strategies she used for her debut literary novel, The Biographies of Ordinary People: Vol. 1: 1989-2000, and their return on investment. A must-read for indie authors on a budget.
Jane Friedman’s Self-Publishing Tutorial
This 2017 blog post from publishing expert Jane Friedman walks you through the steps of self-publishing a book. Video tutorial included.
BookBub’s Ultimate Guide to Book Marketing
Self-publishing service BookBub has compiled this list of articles from their BookBub Partners blog, covering every aspect of the marketing campaign for your self-published or small press book. Topics include book and cover design, pricing, advertising, creating an online platform, author success stories, and how to track the results of your marketing efforts.
TrailerShelf
A project of Wildbound PR, TrailerShelf is a curated site that features book trailers in a variety of genres including literature and fiction, mystery, young adult, spirituality, history, biography, art books, children's literature, and indie authors. There is no charge to submit your book trailer, but the site is selective about acceptance, based on the quality and creativity of the video and the expected audience for the book. They expect to add a paid advertising feature with modest fees. Wildbound PR founder Julia Drake says, "The prices [are likely to] range from $10 for social media amplification to $75 for being featured in our Top Trallers section. There's no way to tell on the site whether placement is paid for or not, but bear in mind that we have to accept the submission, so if we feel that the placement is not warranted, we won't accept the sponsored listing. We will... [continue]
